


Against All Odds

by a_lanart - the younger (a_lanart)



Series: Subtext [5]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Angst, Gen, M/M, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-28
Updated: 2010-04-28
Packaged: 2017-10-09 05:21:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/83476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_lanart/pseuds/a_lanart%20-%20the%20younger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tom reflects...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Against All Odds

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place soon after the story Love Will Tear Us Apart.  
> Title and lyrics from the song by Phil Collins

~*~

Against All Odds

*

"So take a look at me now  
There's just an empty space  
There's nothing left here to remind me  
Just the memory of your face

Take a look at me now  
There's just an empty space  
That you're coming back to me is against the odds  
And that's what I've got to face."

 

Sandrine's. Empty, quiet and rather melancholy. A bit like me really. I slam down the lid of the piano with a choked off curse. The damn song had just seemed to escape as soon as I began to play, and it was eerily appropriate in places. Heart-rendingly so. I rest my forehead on the smooth wood, trying to hold back the tears, trying to hide from the memories. No luck.

The hand that comes to rest on my shoulder isn't unwelcome, or even that surprising. Sandrine. Only a hologram, but she has more heart than most  
of the crew, I think. I raise my head to meet her eyes.

"I still miss him, Sandrine. And it hurts so much.." She snakes an arm around my shoulders. It's kind of comforting.

"So you come 'ere."

"So I come here. It helps. Sort of." She gives me a quick hug.

"I am glad I can be some 'elp. I do not like to see you like this, mon cher." I don't like it much either, but I don't seem to have an option.   
Damn fool thing to do, falling in love. I should've known it wouldn't work out, it seems that nothing that's important to me ever does. Sandrine knows how I feel, and more importantly, makes no judgement.

"Thanks Sandrine." I push myself upright, ready to leave. She reaches out to touch my face, a quick brush of fingers across my cheek.

"You will be together again. I feel it 'ere." She points to her heart.

"Maybe." I step back, close down the program and make my way slowly to my lonely quarters.

 

We will be together again. Everyone seems to feel like that except me and maybe Chakotay. But then everyone except Chakotay thinks it is only   
our friendship that has taken the toll of our experiences on Akritiria. He knows better as he has been the one to pick up the pieces I fall into   
on more than one occasion, something I would never have anticipated in a million years. God, I miss Harry. Miss his warmth, miss his touch,   
miss *him*. Right now I would settle for just having my friend back, but these things take time. I know that from bitter experience.

But time is not something I feel I have to spare any more.

Life is passing me by while I exist in a kind of limbo. Can I really put everything on hold just waiting for Harry to actually look at me one day  
instead of turning away? I have done so far. Do I continue? A million credit question if ever there was one, and it's this that drove me to  
Sandrine's tonight. I am slowly starting to realise that the waiting, the hoping is wearing me down. But what do I do except hope? I love Harry. I want - wanted - To be with him for the rest of my life, and now he can barely acknowledge that I exist.

I want to scream at him that it's not my fault. That he shouldn't be taking his feelings out on me. That I don't deserve to be treated the way he's treating me. And yet I don't. I can't. For part of me feels that it *is* my fault, and I *do* deserve to be treated in this way. Old habits die hard I suppose, and if it wasn't for me none of this would ever have happened.

Harry would disagree with me when I was feeling like this, and would persuade me in every way he knew how to believe him when he told me   
what I was worth. I don't have the luxury of finding approval for my existence in someone else's eyes anymore, and that's hard. I'd gotten   
so used to Harry being at my side as a friend, and then more than a friend, that I still find myself turning to the empty space beside me   
to share something with him.

I don't think I'll ever get used to that.

So.

I have a job I'm good at, that I used to love above all else.  
I have some good friends, and have discovered more in places where I did not expect to find them.  
I am far away from the influence of home.

I have a friend who is bleeding inside and I can't do *anything* about it.

Friend.  
He will always be that, even if he feels unable to acknowledge it. I don't know if we will ever be lovers again, and to be honest with myself (there's a first!) I'm not sure I could cope with that at the moment even if it was likely to happen.

I can't forget that place. The dark, stinking fever dreams. The terror. The gruesome suspicion of what Harry had done to keep me alive. Me! A   
near useless carcass at that point. And yet there was one ray of light in the foetid darkness, a shining thing of hope that I could hold onto.   
I will remember it forever.

"This man is my friend - nobody touches him!"

And now I've lost that. And I can't even offer him the same hope; I have tried, and I have failed.

I pace the room again.

How did I get here? Just what has made me turn round and yell 'enough!' to myself? Maybe it's some vestige of self-esteem that hasn't been completely erased by my past, both recent and far gone. That I have any self-esteem left is partly due to Harry, and now I feel like I'm about to desert him. I hate to do this, but I have to.

Time.

Time ticking away like a bomb.

Time to live.

Time to hope.

Time to stop waiting.

Time to take control.

I can't say I won't regret this, as I know I will, but I can't put my life on hold any longer for you Harry, it's killing me. And I know that if you were yourself you'd be the first to tell me to get on with things.

I will *always* be your friend, and when you need that shoulder to lean on it will still be there. You're hurting. I'm hurting. And the least I can do is respect the distance you need and give us both the space and time to heal.

No one ever said life would be easy.

 

"Take a look at me now  
There's just an empty space  
That you're coming back to me is against the odds  
And that's what I've got to face."


End file.
